Re: FMA DSII

Roger Books wrote:

>Hey, this is exactly what I was looking for, it gives the SG feel
>I was after while working with DS and doing away with the chit
>system.  We are playing DS Wednesday, I'll see if I can convince
>my newbies players to give it a try.
>
>Hmmm, looking at it I have one minor difficulty, HEAT vs
>APFC's do a system down 25% of the time?  I'm having
>trouble rationalizing it.

Having the hull shovered with shrapnel from the round your APFC blasted 
fifteen meters away from the tank isn't all that healthy for your
sensors <g>

And it's not "systems down 25% of the time" - SD is the least likely of 
three possible Special Damage outcomes, and if you kill the target you 
don't score any Special Damage at all :-)

Besides, since I design LAWs/IAVRs (AT4/M136, etc) for a living I'm 
slightly  biased in their favour ;-)

Seriously though, I know exactly what you mean. It *is* annoying that
IAVRs 
firing at Armour/4 or stronger targets have a marginally better chance
to 
inflict at least some damage if the target has APFC than if it has RA,
even 
though the APFC-equipped target runs a lower risk of actually getting 
*destroyed* than the RA-equipped one.

For example, here are the outcomes for IAVRs hitting Armour/5 targets
with...
			 No specials	 RA	 APFC
No effect		62%		71%	68%
Immobilized		1.5%		3.8%	7%
Damage		1.5%		3.8%	7%
Systems Down	1%		2.5%	5%
Kill			34%		19%	13%

I could get around this by giving HEAT Impact D8 against RA, but that
makes 
RA rather weaker than in the chit system... and, equally important, it 
doesn't really solve the *percieved* problem - ie. those players who
look 
at the IAVR-vs-APFC interaction without crunching *all* the numbers and
say 
"Special damage 25% of the time?!?" :-7

Later,

Oerjan
oerjan.ohlson@telia.com

"Life is like a sewer.
  What you get out of it, depends on what you put into it."
-Hen3ry